Description

THOR robotic arm with some extra's :) based from the original design of AngelLM, thanks mate for this nice piece of work!
Trying to do something more... follow me to see the addon's and lots of improvements.

Details

This project is based on the THOR robotic arm project from AngelLM and will be a version with lots of add-ons and especially modified for a wide range of 3D printers with a smaller print area.Also it is my intention to improve a lot of things to the robot his hardware and software.

I am working on a graphical controller that works on PC,MAC and later on mobile devices.You will have the possiblity to make al the movements on the controller without the need of the robot.Ones everything is working on the GUI controller it can be transfered to the robot arduino controllerboard, with the press of a button and some digital inputs you can run the sequences you programmed in the GUI controller. There will be a hand controller to move the robot manually and store the points, afterwards you can send these points to the graphical controller. It will be bi-directional programming.In a further stage the axis will be recorded into the controler so movements can be simulated be moving the robot by hand and can be replayed afterwards.It's a lot but this will be my challange in the next comming days...months :-)

Any feedback is welcome!

I will send my regards to AngelLM for the original nice designed robot called 'THOR' , without him I could not started this SUPER project!

Everything stays open source, like everything should be...One for All, All for OneAll software programs to build the robot are free to download

STL files all online. For users how have printed V2.01 all files marked with a leading underscore are new or changed in V2.02.

Happy printing!Thor+ V2.02 is based from the original idea & design of AngelLM

The difficult part in assembling the robot parts will be the feedback sensor joints, be carefully how they have to rotate around there axis. I will make a manual later on. All the rest is very clear the same as AngelLM his version.

At this moment I build a recorder into the Thor robot gui controller, following will be save and load recorded movements. Then TCP socket to communicate with the real robot arm! will be continued :) I used a other model to test the routine, it's temporary :). Thanks to Luca Filippini for helping me with the Inverse kinematics scripting!

It becomes time to assemble it! So next week I'll try to put it all togetter.In the meanwhile I'm gone put all drawings and stl files online this weekend.And after all these works I finnaly can program back on my GUI controller software :-)In the next comming weeks I will have a real moving robotic arm, Yeah...

UPDATE!!!

Drawing has been changed, I had problems to connect to the mini arduino so had to change the communication to a real serial port. I did move my usb host to I2C.

The base potentiometer has been moved to another analog point, don't need the extra zero potentiometer anymore.

Removed the stepdown pcb and feed arduino mini directly with 5V and used a fan at 5V.

Don't use de extra zero potentiometers at the other axis on arduino mini anymore.

Did some testing to use the SDA SCL at the right side on the unitronics board, a little bit tricky but it works now for 100%.Needed pullup resistors 1.5Kohm between SDA,SLC lines to VCC. Edit the 'ps4_i2c.h' source and changed all the words 'Wire' into 'Wire1'. Added Wire1.begin() in setup function.Now everything is working like I wanted it! Got a spare serial port for connection on my arduino nano. Don't forget to attach the usb host module on TTL/USB module and set 'SERIAL OFF' to avoid latency problems. Read the documentation very carefully from the vendor.

Build Instructions

Everything has been printer with stratasys Uprint SE, because some pieces where to big I changed some 3D parts, you can find them on my Github page if you have the same problem. I made them to be as strong as the originals. Feel free to ask me if you get in trouble printing it. :)

2

Step 2

All parts has been printed, in a couple of days I will assemble THOR and make a movie and instruction list of the build!

3

Step 3

I'am working on a graphical controle with Unity, more will be updated in the coming weeks!

Great work . Does any one write or configure the firmware sketch of the Ultratronics pro board and the nano Arduino? if not I may start configure the Marlin firmware to work with the Ultratronics board and we can send the values of the angles of the joints as G-code by the serial port.

This project is really wonderful, and I am deeply attracted by it. As a college student, I want to design a 3D printing mechanical arm like this by myself, but I don't know how to start, so I would like to ask you what analytical design software is used in the design of this mechanical arm.What knowledge base does the design require?Is there any reference to the learning books recommended?I would appreciate it if you could give me some hints.This project is really wonderful, and I am deeply attracted by it. As a college student, I want to design a 3D printing mechanical arm like this by myself, but I don't know how to start, so I would like to ask you what analytical design software is used in the design of this mechanical arm.What knowledge base does the design require?Is there any reference to the learning books recommended?I would appreciate it if you could give me some hints.

Some Rar files are corrupt and I have several error reports.I managed to download STL_V2.04 files but I need a guide for assembling your improved parts. There are some things I do not understand how to mount like the small conical gear bars on the art56 Do you have a guide or a video?

Hi! I'm new to this project so excuse me if I ask any silly questions ;) All files looks bit messy to me so I appreciate if you suggest a full list of required files (latest 2.04 version) to download. For the electronic components everything is clear but can I use MKS gen L 1.0 board instead? Thank you!

Hi Taras,You need at least 6 stepper drivers, so MKS gen board isn't good enough. All STL files has to be print, only a few very small parts you need two of them. I know there isn't a real BOM list at the moment, will try to make some if I got a little spare time.

You can follow sepio's page, his build is based on my version at it has good instructions.See Ya!

Thank you for the reply, yes I did find Sepio's project and following it. Yes, my MKS board has only 5 ports for stepper drivers. But can I also add an additional driver connected to MKS? Such as ramps, just to extend the existing board. If that works, does it require any changes to the firmware?

Hey Danny - marvelous work! Impressed by your engineering prowess. I'm looking through the project but can't find the software for controlling the steppers, displaying the nexion stuff, etc that goes on ultratronics and the arduino nano. Can you share those as well? Cheers!

Thanks, I really appreciate all you've done / are doing for this project. I getting to the point of working on Art[456] and would like to incorporate Sepio's changes. Do you think you're going to be making changes to the STLs that Sepio posted?

No, I'm going to implement it to my cad source just like he changed it and put the stl's back online with a new version. The nice thing about Sepio, he has built and tested it allready, gives a good feedback with a lot of documentation, that's were I have been failed :-)

I've been wondering if you guys did some kind of instruction guide for this project.We're are currently having some issues with the grbl and gcode. Normally we send some simple coordinates and the serial monitor returns either error 20 or error 2 (both are related to unavailable commands or irregular values). We even tried sending G0 A0 B0 C0 D0 X0 Y0 Z0, but it returned error 20.Is this because we are not working with the micro end stop connected to the pcb or is this because another issue?

I never used grbl ,angelLM works with these software.You have to ask him. I have a own software to move manually and automatic works with my graphical GUI pc controler software which isn't finnished for public at the moment. sorry for that, I am still working on it.

Danny, if you're going to modify the BASE.stl file could you add a bit of sideways adjustment to the screw holes that mount the stepper motor? This would allow for setting the engagement of INNER_GEAR.stl to the drive gear. If you're not reworking the base I'll make the changes myself.

Sorry for the delay, I will make a update soon, if you will change it earlier you can do the modification by yourself and put the step file on your page. I will collect everything together for the new release :-)

Danny, Are you interested in a slightly modified ART1BODY_P2? I added a bit of material back onto the side of the part that had been removed to make sliding in the steppers easier. Since you changed the part so the upper stepper can be installed from the top there's no need for clearance below the upper stepper. I feel this makes for a stronger part. I have an stl and Fusion 360 file if you want it although I'm sure you could make the same change quicker.